Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Los Angeles poised to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour

Following the lead of other west coast cities, the Los Angeles city council appears ready to raise the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2020.LA Times:

Workers are currently supposed to earn at least the California state minimum wage of $9 an hour, which will rise to $10 an hour in January. Under a plan endorsed by a key panel of City Council members last week, Los Angeles would increase its required wage year-by-year to reach a minimum of $15 hourly by July 2020

Small businesses -- those with 25 workers or fewer -- would get an additional year to phase in the increases. Nonprofits that meet certain requirements could ask permission to do the same.Under the plan, the wage requirements would continue to rise automatically every year starting in July 2022, based on the average increase in the consumer price index over the previous two decades.

The wage proposal would hike pay more slowly than some activists wanted. But leaders in the Raise the Wage Coalition nonetheless heralded it last week as a sound plan to improve the standard of living for low-income workers and their families.